Glow in the Dark
by UnluckyAmulet
Summary: Just your usual insane series of events...Neil is depressed, Mike finds a killer fungus in the bathroom and Vyvyan should never be trusted with alchohol. And Rick is, well...Rick. And then there's the weird girl sitting under the kitchen table...
1. Alchohol induced

Disclaimer: I do not own the Young Ones

Oh god, I had to write this. I've been completely obsessed with the Young Ones, especially since I just got some DVDs for my birthday. Story is rated T for language and sex-related things. Yes, there is an OC pairing, but I've got her all planned out. I couldn't resist!

Enjoy!

* * *

It was a typical morning in the house of the Young Ones.

"Neil! Hurry up and finish making breakfast!" shrieked Rick, hands on his hips as a flustered Neil scurried about the kitchen, "Honestly, is it so much to ask, to eat something other then _lentils_ once in a while?"

"Oh, Rick, please stop hassling me, it's getting really heavy!" moaned Neil, finally finding the long-buried packet of Cornflakes behind a teetering stack of chipped crockery (nobody would make the mistake of calling it 'china'.)

Michael was sitting at the table, reading the newspaper, utterly at ease in comparison to the mad surroundings he tended to find himself in. Rick sat down with an indignant 'thump', as Neil hastily plonked down a bowl of cereal, no milk. Rick grumpily moved to eat, then promptly knocked a spoon off the table, then landed with a clatter on the floor.

"Ow," said a voice from under the table.

"Oh, I'm sowwy about that" Rick mumbled absently, bending down to retrieve the spoon. Then he sort of froze.

A girl was sitting under the table. She glanced down at the spoon and handed it to Rick, holding a bowl of cereal with her other hand. She blinked, and Rick noticed she had glittery green eye-shadow smeared across her eyelids and was dressed quite oddly. Not that somebody who wore the same jacket over and over again could really talk much about fashion. She raised her eyebrows slightly as he continued to stare.

"...Thank you," Rick said, in a distracted manner, too shocked to do anything else.

The girl nodded slowly, then returned to picking at the bowl of cereal cradled in her lap. Rick sat back up, slightly stunned.

"Mike," he said in one of his loudest voices without actually shouting, rapidly pointing at the table top, "Did you know that there is a _girl_ under the table?"

"Yes, Rick," replied Michael nonchalantly, turning the pages of his newspaper, "She's been here since last night,"

If Rick or Neil found it unusual that Mike had not claimed this particular girl to have been in his bed, neither of them paid it any heed.

"WHAT!" screeched Rick, leaping dramatically up from the table, "Why wasn't I told about this?!"

"Well, Rick, you were unconscious for most of last night," piped up Neil helpfully.

"Oh, was I?" crowed Rick, with a sort of triumphant giggle, "Well, what can I say, I just don't know when to stop dwinking! Quite the party animal, I am! Anarchy and all that!"

"No, Rick, you were unconscious because Vyvyan knocked you out with that beer glass and then him and Neil stuffed you in the coat room so you wouldn't take up space," Mike told him, "Vyv stayed at the pub longer then we all did."

"Oh," supplied Rick, his hands sliding off his hips. Then he suddenly recovered and said, "That still doesn't explain what she's doing here!"

"Hiding from Vyvyan," explained Neil. The girl snorted loudly from beneath the table. Mike turned the page of his newspaper calmly as he said,

"Yeah, Rick, the convenient flashback should explain everything,"

Everyone then begin to wiggle around unconvincingly as the screen blurred to several hours earlier…

* * *

_Several hours earlier…_

"Hurry up, guys, hurry up!" Mike called up the stairs, hearing various crashing sounds coming from Rick's bedroom, "The girls are going to be upset if I'm much later. I can't disappoint that many people at once."

Upstairs, however, Rick had more pressing matters to deal with then Mike's fictitious sexual prowess.

"VYVYAN! YOU BASTARD!" he screamed, desperately trying to beat out a fire that the punk had started, "How dare you set fire to my dungarees! What am I supposed to wear to the pub now?"

"Something not puffy!" replied Vyvyan, watching with mild interest as Rick continued to fruitlessly beat at his beloved clothing, "How d'you expect us to get any girls with you wearing a banana skin?"

"Oh yes! And what about Neil!" yelled Rick, finally managing to squash the fire out and now rounding to face Vyvyan, hands on hips, "I don't see you burning any of his filthy clothes!"

"Neil's clothes are too soggy to burn, Rick!" retorted Vyvyan in his typical screech, rolling his eyes.

"Will you guys stop shouting!" called Neil mournfully, his idea of 'getting ready' being to wash the first layer of dirt from his face, "It's really heavy! Mike and me have been waiting for you two for ages!"

"SHUT UP, NEIL!"

Eventually, after a quick change of clothes, a couple of beatings, dished out by Vyvyan and a brief scramble over the keys, the boys were finally ready to leave the house. Luckily, Mike had anticipated that there might be some sort of delay, so he had cunningly announced they were leaving for the pub an hour before their original time, giving him plenty of time to spruce up while his associates ate up the extra hour.

"Back in a bit, boys," Mike said, flashing a smile at a gaggle of girls over by the bar, who had glanced over as all of them walked in, "I have work to do."

And off he went.

"Oh, oh, I see!" Rick shouted after Mike, sitting down at the nearest table, "Just abandon us, Mike, that's fi- Where are you two going?!"

"What?" Vyvyan asked calmly as he and Neil went off to follow Mike, "You didn't think we'd sit here talking to you, snotty?"

"Actually, I just want to go to the toilet," Neil announced, pointing, whilst Vyvyan made a beeline for the bar.

"Oh, shut up Neil!" shouted Rick, not getting up from his seat out of sheer belligerence then anything else, "Are you going to tell us whenever you need to go to the toilet? None of us want to hear about you and your dirty habits, you filthy hippie!"

"Oh, come on Rick, everyone has to go to the toilet sometimes," complained Neil, unable to stand it anymore, "I've gotta go now!"

"God!" Rick complained loudly to one of the omnipresent cameras, "What a fascist!"

Nobody paid him any attention.

Mike was happily chatting up an auburn-haired girl in a mini-skirt, although anybody looking at them would say that she was only talking to him until someone better came along. Indeed, the five or so girls were all wearing expressions of polite interest, except one of them, a brunette girl who was standing a little further away from the others, wearing an annoyed expression.

"And so I said, 'Darlin', I think you'll find we _will_ need all those condoms'," finished up Mike, and a few girls giggled at his punch line.

The only girl who didn't giggle rolled her eyes, shooting a venomous look at the girls near her. Just then, Vyvyan came marching up to the bar. The brunette stared at him for a second.

"I'll have a Babysham, _please_," Vyvyan said, putting strange emphasis on the last word as though he wasn't used to saying it. The girl seized her chance.

"Hi," the girl said to Vyvyan suddenly, turning her back firmly on the girls behind her, their attention distracted by Mike, "I'm Evelyn,"

"Vyvyan," replied Vyvyan, collecting his Babysham.

There was an awkward pause.

"So...want a drink?" Vyvyan managed, unable to think of anything else to say.

"You've just ordered a Babysham," Evelyn pointed out.

Vyvyan looked at his Babysham in a considering way, then down it all in one go. He set it back down on the bar, wobbling slightly at the movement.

"How about now?"

Evelyn grinned mischievously.

"Yeah!"

_One Hour Later…_"Well, I think it's been a successful night," Mike said smugly to Neil, a telltale lipstick smear on his cheek, as they headed for the exit. Then he stopped and looked around, "Although come to mention it, where's Rick and Vyvyan?"

"Um, Rick's unconscious over there," Neil said, pointing, "And Vyvyan's slowly ensuring that his kidney fails him in mid age. I did try to warn him about that, but he wouldn't listen…"

"Alright, alright," said Mike, not really wishing to listen to an ego-rant from Neil, not now or indeed any other time, "Let's get him before he smashes something valuable."

"I bet you, right," said Vyvyan, who was by now so drunk he could hardly sit on his chair properly without swaying dangerously on it, "I bet you fifty quid, that I could smash this glass in my face and be tota'ly fine by nex' schene."

"Wha'?" giggled Evelyn, who was in a similar state to Vyvyan, "Whaya mean, next schene? You're drunk."

"Watch this!" enthused Vyvyan, picking up his own empty glass and holding it above his head, "One…two…um…"

He stopped for a second, his eyes not focusing straight away.

"What comes afta two, 'gain?"

Evelyn laughed drunkenly, accidentally spilling some of her cocktail on the already vaguely sticky bar. "Whoopsh!"

"Hey, Vyv!" said Mike, as Vyvyan was still struggling to remember the number three, "We're going. Come on,"

"Nah," said Vyvyan, shaking his head, "Go on. I'll ketchup."

"Alright, but Vyvyan, just remember, if you smash something, don't tell the owner your real address," Mike said to Vyvyan, clapping him companionably on the back, "And it's three you're thinking of. Three."

"I knew it was somethin' like tha'!" shouted Vyvyan triumphantly, "Thanks, Mike!"

"No problem, Vyv," replied Mike smoothly, glancing at Evelyn, who was fishing around the bottom of her glass, apparently trying to get out one of the ice-cubes.

As him and Neil turned and headed for the exit, Neil suddenly started.

"Oh, Mike, Mike!" he said anxiously.

"What is it, Neil?"

"How exactly are we going to get Rick home?"

Mike looked at him.

"It's very simple, Neil," he explained patiently, "You're going to have to carry him."

"Oh," supplied Neil. "Heavy…"

* * *

"Wow, that really was convenient!" Neil commented, blinking a little.

"Urgh!" shouted Rick, pulling a hideous face, "How disgusting! You'd better not have been carrying me anywhere, Neil, you revolting little puke face!"

"Oh, no, it was okay, Rick," replied Neil, "We found an empty wheelie bin, so you just went in there."

Mike had to fight very hard not to smirk.

"Actually, where is Vyvyan, anyway?" Rick suddenly added, frowning, temporarily forgetting about the fact he had been treated like, well, a bag of rubbish.

_CRASH!_

"Oh, hello, Vyv," greeted Mike, calmly, as Vyvyan came sauntering into the room, having just booted the door down, "We were wondering where you'd got to,"

"We ran out of Vodka," grunted Vyvyan, holding up a bottle of the stuff as though to prove it.

"Oh, yes, that's very considewate of you, Vyvyan!" shouted Rick, "Just smash the door down, instead of opening it like a normal member of society!"

Vyvyan replied to this by head-butting Rick, knocking the sociology student to the floor. Then he turned his attention to the kitchen, tipping his head to one side.

"Evelyn, why are you hiding under the table?" Vyvyan inquired.

"I wasn't!" replied Evelyn, unconvincingly, "I, um, dropped my...eyeliner."

"You were already wearing eyeliner, though." Neil pointed out, intelligently.

"Exactly!" Evelyn said with finality, thoroughly confusing Neil as she crawled out from under the table and stood up, leaving her cereal bowl behind.

"Wait, wait, wait!" shouted Rick, stamping his feet and generally doing as much as possible to attract attention to himself. Everyone glanced over, duly interested, "That still does not explain why she's still here, except for the fact Vyvyan is now appawently some sort of kidnapper!"

"Because every time I try to leave, Vyvyan barricades the door," replied Evelyn, now rounding on Vyvyan with a glittery glare, "He even stayed up all night just to do that!"

"You owe me £50!" screeched Vyvyan, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world, "Where is it?"

"I do _not_ owe you £50!" Evelyn shrieked back, hands on her hips. Neil, wincing, dug his little finger in his ear, "You just tried to bet me yourself! I never agreed to it! And anyway, what are you going to do? You can't stay awake forever."

Vyvyan thought about this for a moment, then he suddenly pointed at her,

"Yeah, well! We go to the same uni! I'd run into you eventually, even if you did leave!"

Evelyn stared at him for a minute. Then she folded her arms, cocking her head to one side as though thinking about something. Then she abruptly said,

"Well, what about clothes?"

"What?" chorused Vyvyan, Rick and Neil at once, taken aback by this sudden change in the conversation.

"If I'm going to be living here," Evelyn continued, apparently choosing to ignore the collective expression of disbelief, "Then what about all my things? I'll need to go get that. And I need somewhere to sleep. Last night I kipped on the sofa and woke up with springs embedded in my back."

"It's not my fault, this sofa has inadequate stuffing!" commented one of the springs, which went completely unnoticed.

"You mean you actually want to move in?" Rick asked, bewildered at how easily that had happened.

"Shut up, Rick," Mike calmly commanded, seizing control of the situation, "Surely you're not going to complain that a _girl_ wants to live here?"

"No, but-but, well…_why_?" spluttered Rick, actually saying something sensible for a change. Everyone glanced back at Evelyn, who looked decidedly shifty.

"Um." She articulated, "Well. You see, that is to say…I'm in a bit of an, um…. Situation. And, uh-"

"Spit it out!" shouted Vyvyan.

"Well, the face of the matter is, I've kind of had a row with my flatmates. A big row. And they sort of, um, threw me out of the house, actually. So, last night, in the pub…I was thinking I might be able to find some other girls to live with for a while until, you know… I could get myself sorted out."

"Well, then, I see no problem with that!" said Mike, rubbing his hands together in a business-like way. "We can get you sorted out for those, no problem!"

"I can go pick up my old clothes from the old house," Evelyn said, then added darkly "Assuming those bitches haven't thrown all of them out too."

"Well, one of us will have to come with you," said Michael, standing up, "And it looks like it'll be me,"

"Good idea!" agreed Vyvyan, getting up off the sofa too, "Make sure she doesn't do a runner anyway!"

"For the last time, I am not giving you £50! I wouldn't even if I could afford it!" Evelyn yelled, exasperated.

"And anyway, that's not why _I'm_ going along," Mike explained patiently, "I'm going to check out these flatmates of Evelyn's."

"I don't think you're their type," replied Evelyn coldly, apparently unimpressed with the idea of anyone flirting with her ex-roommates, as she pushed open the door.

"Oh yeah? What's their type, then?" inquired Rick.

Evelyn tilted her head to one side, thinking,

"Rich."

* * *

"Hurry it up, will you, Rick?" called Mike impatiently from the threshold of the house, "I don't wish to suggest you're taking a long time, but the pyramids were built considerably more quickly then it's taking you are to move that suitcase."

"Well, why am I being made to cawwy it anyway?" shouted Rick, trying and again failing to lift the suitcase, "Considewing Vyvyan's the one who started all this anyway!"

"Shut up!" shouted Vyvyan, stomping down the garden path and punching Rick in the face. Rick toppled dramatically over onto the ground, groaning quietly to himself.

Vyvyan then picked up the suitcase as though it were a bag of feathers and went back off into the house. He waited for Rick to sit up, then as Rick came bolting up the garden path, closed the door, listening with satisfaction as Rick yelped, "Vyvyan! You bastard!" from the other side, scrabbling at the door like a small dog wanting to go for a walk.

"Ah, brilliant!" said Evelyn, unzipping her suitcase and pulling out several bags of crisps, "I'm starving!"

There was a general scuffle at that point, as Evelyn threw bags of crisps to Vyvyan, Neil and Mike, and they all immediately began trying to swap for their favourite flavour. Rick, now that Vyvyan had been distracted by junk food, came bursting through the door, nearly falling over, as he had pushed against it as hard as he could.

"Vyvyan!" panted Rick from the floor, "You utter bas- Are those crisps?"

"Yeah," Evelyn said, throwing some at his head, "Here."

"Eeuurgh, cheese and onion," whined Rick, biting into one, "Now my bweath will smell!"

"You smell anyway," replied Vyvyan, nicking Rick's packet, having already wolfed down his own. Rick attempted to pinch Vyvyan's arm and was rewarded by a punch in the face.

"Well, I suppose now the only thing to sort out is which room I'm going to stay in," Evelyn announced, glancing at the clock to find it was now fairly late on in the day.

"Since my room has the double-bed, I should say the choice is fairly obvious..." began Mike.

"In your dreams, Shorty," retorted Evelyn.

"Fair enough."

"You'll just have to share with Neil, then,"

Rick pounced on this immediately.

"Why Neil?" he demanded, "What makes Neil's woom the most suitable?"

"Because his is the only one with a spare bed," replied Mike.

"Does it?" asked Neil in wonderment, "I've never seen it!"

"No, that's because you've been sleeping on it, Neil," explained Mike, patiently, "You can sleep on the sofa tonight."

"What? But Mike-"

"Oh, do stop moaning, Neil!" shouted Rick, "You're an insomniac anyway, aren't you, since you're a stupid hippie and think sleep gives you cancer!"

"Oh, all right," lamented Neil, "I've heard there's a Scooby Doo Marathon on telly anyway."

"That's typical of you, Neil!" said Rick, determined that somebody pay him attention, "Waste the electricity bill, just because you have a sleep disorder! God, fascist."

Vyvyan grabbed Rick's collar, mouth still bulging with crisps. He chewed rapidly, swallowed and then said, with eery calm,

"Rick?"

"Yes, Vyvyan?"

"Shut up, or I'll kill you."

Yes, with the exception of a girl who wore way too much glitter, it was an ordinary day for the Young Ones.

It could only get weirder from there...

* * *

And that's the first chapter done! Stay tuned for more!

Until then, reviews would be love-er-ly. :)


	2. Landlords, Landlines and Apricots

Hey readers! Oops, I'm a bit later in updating then I would have liked. But it's here now, and that's what counts! And thanks for the reviews, everybody!

Enjoy!

* * *

That morning/mid-afternoon, Vyvyan Basterd was having a brilliant dream. It mainly involved having people (namely Neil, Rick and several university professors) tied down to operating tables while Vyvyan wielded his giant chainsaw, when suddenly halfway through sawing through Rick's midriff, he found himself suddenly hugging something warm and soft. A gigantic, strawberry-patterned bra! Yes! And it smelled a little bit like apricots!

...

Groaning a little bit, Vyvyan slowly opened his eyes and discovered that some of it had not actually been a dream. Not the part about sawing Rick in half (sadly for Vyvyan) but the other bit.

"Eh?" grunted Vyvyan, brain working at about half its usual capacity. The blanket twitched.

"Oh," mumbled the warm, soft thing, turning over and looking at him with bleary, half-lidded eyes. "G'mornin', Vyv."

"Uh, Evelyn?" Vyvyan said, sitting up a little straighter and blinking, "What are you doing in my bed?"

Not that he particularly minded having a pyjama-clad female lying next to him in bed or anything, but if it turned out they'd had sex or something and he was too drunk to remember, he was going to be cross. He squinted as the sun annoyingly shone in his face.

"I sort of, uh, sleepwalk." mumbled Evelyn, addressing the pillow she currently had half her face buried in. "Only I'm sorta aware that I'm doing it, and I just happen to think it's a good idea at the time,"

"Oh," articulated Vyvyan, trying to figure out how to ask the blazing question in his mind without risking the possible loss of his hearing.

Because, well...he didn't _feel_ any different, and you were generally meant to know about such things, but he did have a bit to drink last night, so his memory was a little hazy...

Finally, he just went and blurted out, "?"

"Wha?" yawned Evelyn, who wasn't listening.

Vyvyan was disappointed, and sensibly decided not to push his luck.

"...Nothin'."

"Will you two shut up!" howled another voice, a voice with a distinctive lisp, "I am twying to _sleep_!"

"GET OUT OF MY BED, RICK, YOU BLOODY SNOT-NOSED BASTARD!!"

* * *

Mike was fishing through his cornflakes, ignoring the semi-incoherent screaming and the loud smashing noises coming from upstairs. He was trying to figure out what exactly the thing he had just fished out of them was supposed to be. He couldn't make up his mind whether it was supposed to be a dinosaur or an elephant. Perhaps it was some sort of cross-breed?

Mike's reverie was interrupted by Vyvyan, who came thumping into the kitchen, muttering something about apricots.

"Hello, Vyvyan,"

"Morning, Mike," replied Vyvyan, who seemed unusually distracted this morning. He began rooting around in the cupboard, apparently searching for something at least halfway edible, since Vyvyan didn't typically count lentils as "halfway" edible. They were more only-eat-in-life-or-death-situations-like-when-some-bastard-like-Prick-steals-the-emergency-Shreddies.

Mike wondered if it was because SPG had managed to get inside the walls again. What a disaster that had been. In the end, Vyvyan had been forced to rip away a good portion of the wall, only to reveal SPG playing what appeared to be a poker game with some of the mice that lived in the wall.

Before Mike could ask Vyvyan what was up (or go back to puzzling out whatever the four-legged thing he was holding in his hand was supposed to be) when Evelyn came drifting down the stairs. Evelyn's eye make-up from the previous day had smeared, making her resemble some kind of raccoon-girl crossbreed. One that liked to hang around in fairy grottos, apparently, judging by the fact she seemed to be wearing a set of fairy-lights as a necklace.

"Morning, Evelyn." Mike greeted calmly, pleased that he had had the foresight to wear sunglasses- it gave him a perfect advantage at looking at Evelyn's boobs without her actually noticing.

Although in fairness to Evelyn, she was still apparently only semi-conscious, so her observational skills were sub-par, to say the least.

Evelyn didn't bother responding; she just kind of grunted in Mike's general direction and flopped down at the table, her forehead gravitating towards the table as though her neck had suddenly lost the ability to support her head. Luckily, she avoided having a cereal facial, since Vyvyan snatched the bowl out of the way before Evelyn's nose made contact with it. This wasn't for her benefit though- Vyvyan had just realised that his bowl had a hole in the bottom, and was now inspecting it to see if it was of natural causes or SPG-related.

Just then, the front door opened and Neil came in, wearing his strange rain-cap, overcoat and a mildly perplexed expression.

"Hey guys, I just saw something incredibly weird outside." Announced Neil, placing the shopping bags he was clutching on the floor.

"Nevermind that right now, Neil, did you get the emergency supplies?" interjected Mike.

"I don't see why doing the food shopping and visiting the chemists classed as an emergency." Pouted Neil, nonetheless collecting the titbits from the shopping bags and stuffing them haphazardly into the fridge.

"Because, Neil." replied Mike, swooping down on the solitary bag from the Chemists, where there was a box of condoms stashed. "You never want to be caught unawares."

Evelyn snorted.

Suddenly, another figure came bursting in through the doorway. It was hard to identify who it was at first, considering they were coated in bits of grass and dust. Upon closer inspection, however, it was-

"You utter BASTARD, Vyvyan!" yelled Rick.

"Oh yeah, that was the really weird thing!" Neil said, in a tone of voice one uses when a Great Realisation dawns on them. "I thought that the crab-grass pile had, like, sprouted its very own pair of legs or something!"

"What happened THIS time?" asked Mike, in a sort of benevolently authoritative way.

"Vyvyan ONLY threw me out of the window!" screamed Rick, pointing an accusatory figure at the orange haired punk.

Vyvyan's rebuttal was to throw his bowl at him, which went whizzing past Rick's left ear and shattered against one of the random selves that seemed to serve no purpose in the house. It was sufficient enough to make Rick squeal girlishly and fling himself to the ground.

"I hate to ask the obvious, but why did you do that, Vyvyan?" sighed Mike.

"Because he's a twat!" came Vyvyan's prompt reply.

"No, I mean, throwing him out of your window."

"Um. Because he's a twat!"

"Why else?"

"Because he climbed into my BED, that's WHY!" yelled Vyvyan, in his typical screech. "He has a pervy crush on me or something!"

"Ugh, don't FLATTER yourself, Vyvyan!" yowled Rick, pulling a face what was supposed to be a sneer, but came out as a sort of toothy grimace. "As if I'd have a cwush on YOU!" Anyway, I wasn't the ONLY one in your be-"

This time, Rick WAS unconscious on the floor, but to the surprise of the others, it was due to a well-aimed cup from Evelyn. The fact that she only seemed to just now have realised she was, in fact, conscious was the most surprising thing of all.

"That shut him up." Mumbled Evelyn into the table.

"Nice." Supplied a surprised Vyvyan, after a brief pause.

"You were in VYVYAN's bed?" repeated Mike, slowly.

"RICK was in Vyvyan's bed?" asked Neil, gaping. "Is that true, Ev?"

"Cheese!" demanded Evelyn abruptly, hitting the table with unnecessary force and addressing the room at large. She then got up and stuck her head inside the fridge.

"Well, tha's one way ta avoid tha subject!" SPG said, from the top of the fridge. Vyvyan threw a fork at him.

Evelyn wasn't listening- she was busily chucking everything that wasn't cheese out of the fridge over her shoulder, whilst Neil ended up frantically scrabbling about to collect it, and to catch anything fragile before it smashed and he was inevitably blamed for it. Unfortunately, he missed a jar of tomato sauce.

"Oh, no." Moaned Neil sadly, kneeling by the smashed jar. "Now you'll never be eaten. Imagine all that time, right, if you were a tomato and you got ground into sauce, only to be smashed all over the floor."

"I never wanted to be tomato sauce, anyway." Complained the smashed jar.

"Yes, it's true." Evelyn announced, as though there had been no break in the conversation at all. "By some bizarre chain of events, me and Rick magically ended up in Vyvyan's bed. Personally, I blame the schools."

"Putting blame aside for the moment, exactly why were you in Vyvyan's bed?" asked Mike, quirking an eyebrow.

"Exactly what I want to know!" agreed Rick, who had by now woken up from his short period of unconsciousness.

"I was hoping that I was in this dream I once had, and that if I climbed into Vyvan's bed, he'd turn into Billy Idol and then snog me." explained Evelyn, smiling dreamily to herself as she continued to ruthlessly hunt for her spreadable cheese. Vyvyan had a rather stunned look on his face.

"Why Vyvyan's bed?" pondered Neil.

Evelyn momentarily stopped hunting around in the fridge and raised her eyebrows.

"Do you see anyone else more likely than him to turn into Billy Idol?"

"Good point." conceded Mike.

"I think the bigger question is what RICK was doing there!" added Neil, who looked puzzled. Then again, Neil looked puzzled often.

"Something about a nightmare." Evelyn said, shrugging.

"Yeah, that's one way of saying it!" agreed Vyvyan loudly.

"So is referring to an innocent observer as a peeping Tom, but that would be labelling." Mike quipped. "And while all of you are down here, I have an announcement. And that would be that I am going to a party tonight, and since I am a generous man, you're all free to tag along."

"What?!"

"What I mean, Rick, is that you can follow me in to the party. Ride in on the coat-tails, so to speak."

"I know what 'tag along means'-!" began Rick, indignantly.

"And you should be very proud."

"-What I MEAN, Michael, is who's party is it, and WHY did you only wait until just now to mention it?"

"Rick, you can't possibly expect me to keep track of all the girls who invite me to places in the future, alright? But just this once, I'll tell you that it was Mary Rodgers who invited me yesterday."

"Hold on." Vyvyan said who had been experimentally trying a daring new flavour combination that involved milk, ketchup and Shreddies. "Isn't she the one who-"

Vyvyan's observation (and the hand gesture that would inevitably go with it) was cut short suddenly by something VERY bad.

"Hello, boys!" cried a familiar (but none too welcome) voice. "It's your landlord, Jerzei!"

This was followed by a boot that came crashing through the living room window, which landed on the floor with a very loud bang.

"Oh no!" lamented Neil, "He's probably come to charge us more money."

"Nevermind that, Neil!" whispered Mike urgently. "If he sees Evelyn here, a girl that hasn't been in Season One, he may just figure out we've secretly taken in another lodger."

"Oh, right!"

Mike looked about frantically, then, inspiration struck.

"Ev, hide in the cupboard!"

"What?" cried Evelyn, confused and now rather annoyed. "No way!"

"Vyvyan!"

"Gotcha, Mike!"

Evelyn turned and tried to fend Vyvyan off with one of the deadliest weapons known to mankind- a slap fight. Vyvyan was, admittedly, distracted for a moment, then he somehow managed to grab Evelyn by the collar of her T-shirt and push her into the cupboard, shutting the door and pushing himself against it as Evelyn immediately started thudding violently against it, using a variety of very interesting swearwords. He waved at Mike to signal the all clear, and the aforementioned CoolPerson opened the door.

"Oh, hello, Mr. Balowski!" said Mike, in a would-be jubilant voice, opening the door the smallest amount possible whilst still being able to see him. "Nice to see you!"

"Yes, yes, wonderful, now go AWAY, fascist!" shouted Rick, trying to sound 'ard.

Nobody was convinced.

"Now, now, boys!" Mr. Balowski tutted, pushing the door wide opening and strolling in without so much as a how-do-you-do. "I just wanted to check up on my favourite lodgers!"

"And charge us the moon, while you're at it." added Mike, wryly, to one of the cameras.

"Actually, yes!"

"Why am I not surprised...heavy." mumbled Neil.

Mr. Balowski, either not hearing or ignoring Neil's unusually dark remark, whipped out a clipboard and fountain pen, seemingly from nowhere. The pen glimmered irritatingly in the sunlight- there was a theory (mostly encouraged by Rick) that the pen was made of solid gold, being a metaphorical middle-finger to the hapless students that Balowski exploited in his evil money-grubbing (fascist) ways.

"Right, for a start, that's £300 for the broken window." began Balowski, indicating it.

"But YOU broke that!" shouted Rick.

"No proof!"

Whilst Balowski argued with the others about whether a solitary boot that matched the one his foot on the carpet constituted as proof, Vyvyan was still leaning against the door, trying and failing to look casual. Unfortunately, Evelyn's muffled thuds on the door were still going strong, probably just to be annoying. Then, all of a sudden, they stopped. Frowning, Vyvyan turned and peered through the keyhole in the door. He couldn't see anything sparkle, so he was forced to assume that she had simply vanished. Possibly into an alternate dimension.

"Right, so, that so far comes to a grand total of £2,460." Balowski mumbled, still scribbling.

"You utter BASTARD!" shouted Rick.

Vyvyan groped for his cricket bat, and crept up behind Rick and clubbed him on the back of the head, an effective way of shutting him up. Or he might have just been bored.

"Now, come on, Mr. Balowski, don't jump the gun." Mike said conversationally, clapping him on the back. "Why not have a cup of tea first?"

Suddenly, there was a strange thudding noise from upstairs. Vyvyan backed even further away from the door, frowning at it as though it had just tried to explain quantum mechanics to him. Just then, however, a door to Vyvyan's left opened and Evelyn came staggering out, looking as though she had suddenly been caught in a violent wind.

Michael shot Vyvyan a rather exasperated face. Vyvyan kind of shrugged empathetically at him, as if to say, "It wasn't my bloody fault!"

Which it wasn't, because how was Vyvyan supposed to remember that he discovered Narnia in that cupboard the one time? Although, really, the fact that some woman dressed up in furs had offered him Turkish Delight had made his memory a little fuzzy around the edges.

"Annnd...who are you?" said Balowski, finally noticing a rather dusty Evelyn, who was coughing rather violently.

"I'm the tooth fairy!" Evelyn shouted, in between wheezy coughs. "Who the hell do you think I am?"

Just then, there was a flash of light, and a rather stroppy-looking figure in a tiny silver dress appeared, complete with wings, a crown and long, platinum-blonde hair. The figure promptly smacked Evelyn on the head with her sparkly wand, and then vanished again. Evelyn rubbed her forehead.

"Ow."

"Well, that's an extra £70 for the stripper." added Balowski, writing something else on his infernal clipboard.

"St-strip-stripper?!" screeched Evelyn, her face going an interesting shade of pink, and she made a kind of weird lunging motion towards Balowski, though luckily she tripped over the hem of her jeans and landed with a thud on her face. Vyvyan laughed.

Feeling that Evelyn wasn't the type to give up on the first try, particularly after being accused of taking her clothes off for money and that Balowski might not appreciate being violently attacked by an elf with racoon make-up, Michael quickly took control of the situation.

"Oh, wouldja look at that?" he remarked, all casual-like. "Some students from the house next door seem to be selling their rented furniture for a tidy profit."

And with that, Balowski cried, "What?! Jerzei doesn't think so!" and rushed out, shouting over his shoulder. "I'll be sending you the bill within a fortnight!"

"That was _heavy._" moaned Neil.

"I can't BELIEVE you hadn't thought of that before!" yelled Evelyn, pushing herself to her feet. "How bloody stupid do you have to be to just ASSUME your landlord won't even bloody NOTICE that suddenly somebody else lived here!"

"Come on, Evelyn, you saw what he was like." said Mike reasonably. "Just be happy that you won't have to pay extra after moving into different accommodation."

"Nobody KNOWS I've moved yet." snapped Evelyn. "I haven't even got all of my stuff back, since those stupid worthless _bitches_ I used to live with haven't even bothered to send it yet, which I'm going to have to ring them for, AGAIN-"

Evelyn went on an angry diatribe about her ex-flatmates, which was a sufficient diversion from her rage towards Balowski, and probably everyone else as well for forcing her into a cupboard and lying about her existence. It wasn't something most people would generally approve of, after all.

"Er, Mike, do you think he's _really_ going to send us a bill?" inquired Neil nervously, as Evelyn carried on ranting to nobody in particular. "Cause the last time he did that, we did get evicted and then we robbed a bank, and you know, I really don't think robbing places is good for my cosmic balance."

"Don't worry, Neil, Balowski's been ordered by the Court- he's not allowed to throw us out of the house for the rest of the year, considering what happened to that double-decker bus."

Rick coughed and began humming to himself. Despite the fact that stealing the bus was the most anarchic thing he had ever done, the fact that him and the others had only narrowly escaped being blown up had made the incident all rather traumatic.

"Well, anyway." Evelyn went on now, apparently having calmed down sufficiently and stalking across the room. "I have some stuff to attend to."

"Eh?" Rick articulated. Evelyn shot the boys a dark look.

"I have some phone calls to make."

* * *

Several hours later, the boys had found themselves getting ready to go out again. It was all rather exciting. However, they had soon discovered that if _they_ thought they took a long time to do everything, then Evelyn seemed to do everything in bullet time.

"Uh, guys, exactly how long ago was it since Ev said 'Just give me five minutes'?" queried Neil.

"About an hour and a half." replied Mike, laconically.

"Oh,"

After Evelyn had made a few rather _heated_ phone calls (included one that ended with Evelyn screaming, "FINE! Well tell her that her arse would look fat if she was wearing a CIRCUS TENT!" and then throwing the phone down so hard she nearly cracked it, she had calmly announced that she was going to go get ready for the party. It was a little unnerving, actually, but wisely nobody had questioned her sudden mood change.

"This is bloody widiculous!" shouted Rick, hands on hips. "What an earth can she be doing up there?"

"Girl things," suggested Vyvyan, who was lounging on the sofa.

"Evelyn!" yelled Rick, stomping angrily over to the bottom of the stairs. No reply.

"Ev?" tried Neil, timidly.

Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

"This calls for drastic action." Mike announced seriously, to the camera.

Getting quickly bored with Vyvyan and Rick's pathetic attempts to get a response (plus, he couldn't hear the telly over their bleating) Vyvyan decided to give it a go himself.

"EV! I'm gonna count to three, and if you don't come down by three, I'm gonna break the door down!"

"Let's hope you remember how this time!" retorted Evelyn's slightly muffled voice.

Rick giggled shrilly, only to shriek when Vyvyan shoved him over and meandered over to the bottom of the stairs.

"Alright, fine! ONE! TWO!"

Creak. Thud. Creak.

"...Three?" said Vyvyan, slowly, as though he had indeed forgotten how.

The stairs creaked slightly as Evelyn descended them. She was wearing possibly the tightest jeans in the entire world. On her feet were turquoise wedges, which matched the impossibly glittery boob tube she had on. The air reeked of some kind of perfume.

"Wow, Ev," commented Neil, awed. "You look, like, you know, you've come out of your cocoon or something."

"Um, thanks, Neil," Ev said, not really sure how to take that. Rick snorted.

"Yes, well, I supposed an ACTUAL caterpillar coming out of its cocoon would have taken considewably less time then you!"

"Oh, shut up!" retorted Evelyn, putting her own hands on her hips and leaning forward, "At least I don't wear the same yellow dungarees to everything!"

"I'll have you know that the girlies think my dungawees are the sexist things since...sex," finished Rick, lamely.

"You look like a ferret in a banana skin!"

Vyvyan let out a screech of derisive laughter at this, Neil giggled tentatively and Mike smiled to himself.

"I do NOT!" shouted Rick, with much stomping of his foot.

"You do!" yelled Evelyn.

"Do not!"

"Do too!"

"I bloody well do not!"

"We're late for the party," Mike pointed out.

"Oh bugger!" shouted Evelyn, with renewed vigour, "We'll never make it in time!"

"Don't be stupid." snorted Vyvyan, "It's just down the road."

The party was delightfully noisy and crowded, and Mike prompted vanished into the crowd, presumably to find a girl drunk/bored enough to talk to him, and possibly for him to somehow persuade into getting into bed with him.

Rick was unimpressed.

"A bit low-bwow, isn't it?" he inquired, wrinkling his nose. He, Evelyn and Vyvyan, who had been loitering uncertainly in the doorway, made their way inside and kind of perched around one of the tables littered about the room. "I feel like a motorbike gang will come cwashing thwough the window at any moment!"

"Excellent!" agreed Vyvyan. "I can get off my tits on Babysham, fight some bikers and smash the place up!"

Vyvyan glanced beside him to see that Evelyn was suddenly conspicuously absent. However, something shiny caught his eye and he looked down to see Evelyn hiding under the table again, which seemed stupid considering the trillions of years she had spent in the bathroom getting ready.

"S'alright, Evelyn, I wasn't serious." Vyvyan told her, failing to mention which part exactly he wasn't serious about. He couldn't help wondering if Evelyn had some sort of fixation with hiding under things.

"That's not the problem," whispered Ev, peering out from under the table and staring at the doorway, eyes bugging in their sockets. "That's my ex-boyfriend!"

* * *

I'll try to update sooner next time!

Until then!


	3. A minor hiccup

Hi readers!

So, um, I updated kind of later then I initionally intended. My bad. I had the beginning of this chapter down, and kind of stupidly assumed I could just polish off the rest. Not so. Plus, I've been so insanely busy recently that I'm sort of amazed I've even been on this WEBSITE. But, it's FINALLY done. Massive thank you to all you reviewers! I love reading the feedback, keep it coming! If it were physically possible, I'd, like, make you cakes or something.

Anyway, enjoy!

* * *

The party was going down a storm.

Apparently.

While everybody else had been indulging in typical party activities, Evelyn, since spotting a dark-haired youth come in through the doorway, surrounding by a gaggle of other teenagers, had spent the majority of the party hidden under the table, her hand occasionally re-surfacing to snatch edible food off the surface. Vyvyan was busy getting unspeakably drunk, as per usual, Neil was smoking something that looked suspiciously like weed, and Mike was busy trying to multi-task by acting cool and getting girls.

Meanwhile...

"Honestly, Evelyn, do you plan on spending the whole night hiding under the table?" Rick hissed, leaning to the side in order to see her better. (Evelyn had banned him from moving, since she was using his legs for cover. Although Rick couldn't help but feel a bit out of his depth at the moment, as there were indeed several rather menacing-looking punks hovering by the alchohol supply. Vyvyan didn't count.)

"Of course not! As soon as everyone is looking in the opposite direction, I'll crawl out and leave!" came the reply.

"Oh, this is _widiculous_." pouted Rick. "I could be getting dwunk! Talking to the other members of the anarchsit society about sticking two fingers up at the fascist hell-hole that is our countwy under the Thatcher dogma, and furthermore-!"

"Rick, your obsession with Cliff Richard is also ridiculous, but that's a whole different issue that needs closer analysis at another time." snapped Evelyn. "And don't you DARE move. I don't want people to see me and think I'm some kind of perverted psycho."

"How does sitting under a table make you a pervert?" Rick asked, puzzled. Evelyn gazed blankly up at him.

"Staring at people's legs. Duh."

Rick was about to make a rebuttal when Vyvyan came sauntering unsteadily back to the table, thumping yet another glass of Babysham down on it, the contents sloshing dangerously towards the rim of the glass.

"Oi, haven't you girls moved since you even got here?" slurred Vyvyan, with a typical Vyvyaan gurn.

"Shut up, fascist!" hissed Rick, and then cringed as Vyvyan leant forwards and swatted him rather hard in the forehead.

"Heyyy guyyys..." drawled the familiar voice of Neil, who was smiling rather blandly as he drifted over to their table, looking like some kind of low-budget wizard with his long hair, dreamy expression and very baggy shirt. "Like, everything seems really cool, y'know? Everyone's movin arooounnd, mingliiin'..."

"Of course they're 'mingliiin'', you stupid hippie, half the party have left!" snapped Rick, massaging his forehead whilst Vyvyan smirked in a self-satisfied way. Neil hardly reacted to Rick's bluster- he was used to it, after all, and the weed was definitely helping.

"You could have told me that earlier, Rick!" Evelyn suddenly ranted at the self-proclaimed anarchist, as she appeared from beneath the table, looking distinctly sparkly and bad-tempered. "I'm going to have words with Baron Von Midget about this stupid party, honestly-"

Then she froze.

Right in front of her, was the dark-haired youth that had caused her to hide under the table for the majority of the party. Neil and Rick both stared at him, then at Evelyn, then back to him.

"Hey, Ev! Whatcha doin', looking for loose change?" snorted Vyvyan, who was utterly oblivious to the reason Evelyn had become paralysed in her rather odd position. "If you don't stand up soon, people'll start resting drinks on you!"

"I'm getting around to that!" snapped Evelyn. "I just...noticed how nice this carpet is!"

"Oh, how very nice of you to say!" chimed in the carpet.

"What?" said the boy, looking around, no doubt alerted by Vyvyan's obnoxiously loud voice. Then he looked down.

"...Ev?"

"Oh." Evelyn said, trying to sound nonchalant, but her oddly strangulated voice wasn't a particularly convincing. "Hi."

Then she promptly sprang to her feet and did the only sensible thing.

She ran for it.

* * *

_Several hours later..._

"Well, I think this has been quite the success," Mike remarked, casually.

"Mike, that girl slapped you in the face," Rick pointed out.

"All part of the foreplay, Rick."

"But she called you a sexual pwedator!"

"Foreplay."

"And she poured her dwink in your hair!"

"Don't worry, Rick, when you're older, you'll understand," Mike told the anarchist soothingly, eliciting a puzzled expression from the latter. Taking advantage of this, Mike pressed on, "Anyway, go round up Vyvyan and Evelyn, will you? I need to make sure Neil doesn't try and smuggle home any dope in his underpants again."

"Urgh, you're not actually going to _check_ down there, are you?" yelped Rick, with disgust.

"No," Mike answered, calmly. "If I tell him to jump and he's too confused to do it, I'll know he smoked it all."

And off he went.

"God, fascist!" hissed Rick, but internally, he was actually feeling quite alright with leaving. (Somebody had been sick in the upstairs toilet, meaning he couldn't use it, and he didn't wish to prolong any suffering on his bottom.)

Finding Vyvyan proved to be fairly easy. All he had to do was follow the various shouts of, "Bastard!" and the crashing noises that inevitably followed it. Rick tip-toed into the landing of the house to find Vyvyan, a broken lamp and a random party-goer lying by his feet. It looked a bit like Neil's friend Warlock.

"Um, hello, Vyvyan." Rick said, awkwardly.

"Piss off, you idiot!" came the response.

"Ahaaa..." Rick said, laughing awkwardly. "Listen, um, Vyvyan, er, MIKE said we need to go now. So, if you want to take it up with him, some girl was giving him a lager shampoo, so, ah-"

"This party's boring anyway. No more booze!" complained the punk. He nudged the person lying by his foot disinterestdly. "He didn't have any."

Which explained the broken lamp.

After hustling Vyvyan out of the landing by saying there might be some people with alcohol outside, there was no sign of their fellow house-mates.

"How bloody inconsidewate can you get! Where did that stupid hippy bugger off to?" hissed Rick, into the dark. "And Micheal's up and vanished too, and now I'm stuck with you!"

"Aww, _missing_ them are you, snot-face?"

"Shut up, you Thatchewite dwone!"

Vyvyan kicked Rick in the shin, which caused the latter to squeal and hop about madly, clutching his shin, while Vyvyan laughed hysterically at him.

"You massive girl!"

Speaking of girls...

"Actually, where is Evelyn, anyway?" Rick suddenly said, ceasing his hopping. Vyvyan shrugged.

"Haven't seen her since she got out from under the table."

"Ssh!" Rick hissed. "Look!"

Vyvyan was about to open his mouth and argue, but then he saw what Rick was pointing at and, for once, complied with the sociology student.

Evelyn was standing with her arms folded and her mouth set in a distinct expression of being unimpressed. The boy that Evelyn had been hiding from for about half of the party was standing opposite her, clutching a cup of beer. Judging by the way he was swaying slightly, it wasn't his first.

"Listen, Tammy..." slurred Justin.

"Evelyn."

"Listen, Evelyn...wha' I did...it was an accident. It di'n't mean 'nything."

Evelyn stared at him flatly.

"You slept with my roomate. And tried to feel up my cousin."

"Yeah, well-"

"BEING DRUNK IS NOT AN EXCUSE!" Evelyn shreiked at him. Justin winced. "If you wanted to DO THINGS and you were DRUNK, would it have been so difficult to just find ME, your supposed GIRLFRIEND, to do STUFF WITH, INSTEAD OF GRABBING THE FIRST DRUNKEN COW YOU COULD FIND?"

"Oh, c'mon, Ev..."

"Don'ttouchme!"

Justin's hand snaked towards Evelyn in the darkness, which Evelyn angrily side-stepped. Vyvyan caught a glimpse of her face as she did this- she looked angry, obviously, but also slightly upset for a moment.

"Evelyn-"

"HEY! EV!" Vyvyan suddenly yelled, making everyone else in the vicinity jump.

Before Rick or Justin could speak, the punk marched out from the snicket and over to Evelyn, who was standing there with her mouth slightly open, which generally wasn't a good look.

"We've been looking everywhere for you!" Vyvyan announced. "Come on."

He wasn't sure exactly WHY he had said that (it could have been true, he had no idea.) but he had the feeling that it was a combination of three things: Alcohol, the fact that Evelyn's eyelid was twitching rather rapidly, and the fact that he really, really wanted to punch something.

"Huh?" Evelyn said, succinctly summing up pretty much what everyone was thinking.

"We're talkin' 'bout shomethin'" Justin informed Vyvyan, slinging an arm over Evelyn's shoulder, who let out a furious screech of disgust. "In private."

"We are not!"

And then, a miracle happened.

"Quick! It's the Pigs!" shouted a boy, who was obviously trying to steal a television, judging by the fact he looked pregnant, which is an odd thing in a man. Sirens wailed in the background as several teenagers ran in all directions, yelling.

"Oh no!" Rick immediately squealed, running about in small circles. "The Pigs! Everyone knows they hate students! I can't go to pwison! They'll wape me! Help! Help! I didn't do it!"

"Shut up, Rick, you stupid bastard!" Vyvyan yelled, slapping Rick upside the head. All of Rick's hysterical shrieking was giving him a headache.

He turned his attention to Evelyn and Justin, as the former furiously attempted to stamp on the latter's foot.

"Right!"

And with absolutely no thought or any particular poise, he stomped over to Justin and punched him in the face. He felt a mingle of satisfaction at Justin squealing and falling backwards, clutching his bloodied nose, and a twinge of disgust at the pathetic display the latter was putting on. It was almost as bad as Rick.

Next, he turned to Evelyn, who was shouting something along the lines of, "What the FUCK, Vyvyan-!" and casually stooped, grabbed hold of her legs and hauled her over his shoulder, ignoring Evelyn's yells of "Vyvyan!" and "I'm gonna be sick, you stupid twat, put me down!"

"Rick, stop crying like the little bogey-bum you are and come ON!" Vyvyan barked at the sociology student, who was currently wailing about how he had been forced to come to the party and how he was a victim in the whole situation. Rick looked up, blinking, as Vyvyan snorted like a bull and stomped off, while Evelyn carried on shouting (what in particular she was shouting about now was anybody's guess), slung awkwardly over his shoulder like a bag of flour and kicking feebly.

"Oh. Wight." Rick mumbled, and trotted meekly after them.

As the three Young Ones left, Neil came drifting outside like a helium balloon that has been sagging for a few days.

"I could have sworn I heard Rick, Ev and Vyv out here!" he complained, to the cameras. "Heavy..."

Then he looked around, a mildly confused expression on his face.

"Where am I?"

* * *

The next morning, it was actually slightly more quiet than usual in the house of our favourite, hygienically-challenged students. Vyvyan was slumped over the table, nursing his hangover- with a bottle of rum. Neil was running about, as quietly as possible, trying to make something edible for breakfast/lunch, Mike was reading the paper, as the author couldn't be bothered to have him do anything else, and Rick was picking at one of his spots.

"How much did you have to drink last night, Vyv?" Mike asked Vyvyan as the med student let out his fourth groan.

"...Lots." Vyvyan surmised, after a few moments.

Neil scurried around the others, handing out slices of toast. There were no plates- the ones that hadn't yet been broken over Rick's head seemed to have gone missing or were so coated in filth that things were actually _growing_ on them.

"Oooh, goody!" Rick announced, taking a bite of his. "Stwawbewwy jam!"

Vyvyan swiftly grabbed the toast from Rick's fingers and flung it away.

"You BASTARD, Vyvyan!" Rick shouted, leaping up and trying to stab Vyvyan with a fork, sparking a small fight which ended with Rick having a teacup thrown at him.

Then, extremely noisy thudding interrupted the (relative) peace.

"ALL RIGHT!" Evelyn yelled, pointing dramatically at each of her house-mates in turn, before adding in a menacing voice. "Who did it?"

A small silence followed.

"Well, I think you'll find I have, several times." Mike commented, sounding a strange cross of matter-of-fact and smug.

"Um, who did what, Ev?" Neil piped up, rather nervously.

Evelyn lifted up her index finger. (Well, it was attached to her hand and arm, obviously.)

"My strawberry-patterned bra that I bought two months ago with the red lace on it is MISSING. It was lying around on the floor in my room last night and now it's GONE. So one of you obviously took it and I want it BACK! It cost me twenty quid!"

She folded her arms over her chest, in a rather final manner.

The boys glanced at each other, flashing What-the-hell-is-she-talking-about? signals. Well, almost all of them, anyway...

"Well, it was obviously Neil!" Rick burst out suddenly, thrusting an accusatory finger at the aforementioned hippy. "He's the one who's always cweeping awound at night!"

"What? How could I have taken it? I've been downstairs all the time!" complained Neil, mournfully. "I think that's really heavy, right, just immediately accusing me of theft without any concrete evidence, Rick!"

Vyvyan, however, was frowning to himself. Where had he heard the phrase 'strawberry-patterned bra' before?

"I think we should search your room, then!" announced Rick, sneering rather pathetically as Neil looked panicky. "And then we'll see if there's any _concwete _evidence or not, you stupid hippie!"

"No! You can't go in my room, Rick!" Neil yelped.

Everyone glanced at Neil, a little surprised at this uncharacteristic display of energy from the long-haired pacifist. Evelyn and Vyvyan glanced at each other, then shrugged. Mike looked at Neil over his sunglasses.

"Why can't we go in your room, Neil?" Mike asked, calmly, with the air of one asking a loaded question.

"Um, um, uuuuummmm...because I've just painted my astrological star chart and I don't want the paint to get smudged." Neil said, his voice adopting a dreamy quality when uttering the words 'star chart'. The boys shrugged, seeming to accept that, but Evelyn frowned suspiciously.

Rick snorted loudly.

"God, Neil, you're such a dwip and a girl!"

"What's so bad about being a girl, Rick?" Evelyn asked Rick, acidly.

"Um...no..." Rick stammered, as the housemates all turned to stare at him. "Wh-what-what I MEANT to say, actually, is that Neil's such a dwip AND a girl would never go near him even if he paid them lots and lots of money!" he finished, triumphant.

Neil looked confused.

"Rick, aside from your mum and Evelyn, you've never even been near a proper girl." Mike reminded him.

"Well, I don't care!" shouted Rick, putting his hands on his hips. "Because- because, I was definitely thinking about touching girls' bottoms and things! Yes!"

"Rick," Evelyn said, in a highly dangerous voice, "If I even catch you _thinking _about touching my bottom- or indeed any part of my anatomy- then I will personally ram a chainsaw through your kidneys. Understand?"

"As long as you clean it afterwards," chimed in Vyvyan.

"Y-yes..." stammered Rick.

A silence descended.

An AWKWARD silence.

Thankfully, the silence was broken by a loud knocking at the front door.

"Somebody just knocked on the front door." Mike announced, glancing up at the others from behind his newspaper.

"Yeah, typically it means they want to come in or something." Evelyn said, sarcastically.

"Looks like someone will have to answer the front door." continued Mike, as though he hadn't heard her.

"Bags not me!" screamed Rick, with a strange kind of theatrical bouncing, hand in the air.

"Bags not me!" yelled Vyvyan, whacking Rick with his cricket bat, knocking the sociology student to the floor, elicting a yelp from him.

"Bags not me!" shouted Evelyn.

They all turned to Neil, eerily identical expectant looks on their faces.

"I suppose I'll just get the door, then." mumbled Neil, shuffling obediently towards it.

There was an expectant pause. Rick looked at his watch, then remembered he couldn't tell the time anyway. He frowned.

_Why am I weawing a watch in the first place if I'm not...all that good at telling the time?_ He thought, being uncharacteristically insightful, for a change. _Wait! I know! Anarchists don't NEED to tell the time!_Rick grinned now, rather smugly happy with his train of thought.

_Yeah, who needs time, anyway? It's just another attempt of The Man to keep us all down and keep to a stupid schedule, where we all have to tell the TIME! Well, I've got news for YOU, Mr. MAN, The People's Poet isn't fooled by you and your so-called-_"RICK! WILL YOU STOP YOUR STUPID INTERNAL MONOLOGGING!" screamed Vyvyan, picking up a chair and using it to smash Rick into the floor. "I. Am. Very. HUNGOVER!"

"Yes, I expect all that shouting is doing it the world of good," remarked Mike.

"What?"

Just then, Neil made a not-so grand entrance back into the house, followed by someone else.

"Um, Ev, this guy says he's here to see you and stuff..." mumbled Neil, shuffling aside to reveal 'this guy'.

And in walked a very strangely dressed man. He was wearing a moss-green suit, combined with what looked like a brown fedora with a feather poking out of it. Shaggy, dirty-blonde hair escaped from beneath the hat and a light coating of similarly-coloured stubble decorated his chin. He looked to be about in his late fourties, and that he had come to the house dressed as either a mod or a pimp. As Evelyn stared at him with a look of pure shock written all over her face, he smiled rather sheepishly.

"Hi, Evelyn."

"Dad?" Evelyn squeaked. "What the hell are YOU doing here?"

"What? Aren't I allowed to visit my daughter occasionally?" asked Quentin, batting his eyelashes.

Evelyn raised her eyebrows and folded her arms over her chest.

"Let me guess. You need a tenner."

"Well. Sort of."

"Oh, well! Of course somebody so odd-looking is welated to her." Rick muttered. Vyvyan snorted loudly.

Evelyn shot Rick a look that had the anarchist cringing and hiding behind Neil.

"How did you find me, anyway?" Evelyn demanded, looking back at Quentin and putting her hands on her hips. "Nobody has been able to find me recently, not even the postman."

"Actually, that's the anti-postman-trap I've been setting up." Vyvyan interjected, sounding proud of this.

"Alison." replied Quentin, with a slight shrug. "She mentioned that you had a fight with your roommates and decided to go and live with some people who drove a bus over a cliff last year after randomly meeting them in a pub."

"Yup, that about sums it up." agreed Evelyn, picking at a hole in the hem of her top. Neither of them seemed particularly perturbed about the direction the conversation was taking.

"Well, aren't you going to introduce me?" Quentin prompted, looking about, "it's a shame you fell out with your old roommates, though. Such pretty girls..."

"Shut UP, dad." Evelyn said quickly, with a rather pissed-off face. Quentin grinned apologetically. Evelyn coughed into her fist and gestured to Neil. "This is Neil...little twat hiding behind him is Rick."

"Hello!" Neil said, politely. Rick pretended not to hear the introduction.

Evelyn pointed to Mike and Vyvyan in turn.

"That's Micheal and this is Vyvyan." she said, thus cementing the previous action.

"Nice to meet you, boys!" Quentin said, cheerfully. "Quentin Volcano."

"Volcano?" Neil asked, sounding impressed at such an outlandish last name.

Quentin turned to Evelyn.

"So, which one is your boyfriend?"

Each boy (except for Mike, since he had a CoolPerson reputation to uphold) reacted in a similar way- all of them simultaneously performed some kind of jerky, flailing movement and turned to look at Evelyn, wide-eyed. Evelyn's jaw dropped and her face changed from her normal flesh colour to a more white shade.

"You did NOT just ask me that question!" she screeched, "Just because I live with boys, you automatically _assume_ I have to fancy one of them! As if! God, you've only been here for five minutes and I'm already thinking about killing you!"

"Evvie-"

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" screeched Evelyn, swivelling away from him and folding her arms. Neil winced. "I'm not speaking to you! Get outta my house!"

"But I got you a present-" Quentin protested, procuring a box from beneath his jacket.

"I forgive you." Evelyn immediately said, turning and grabbing the box. She tore off the wrapping paper with a smooth, practised movement, as if she had been bribed many a time before. "Ooh! Shoes!" she squealed, throwing the glittery paper aside, which Neil surreptitiously hid in his pocket. (It would make a great addition for his Star Chart.)

"Tenner?" Quentin asked, as Evelyn giggled rather oddly, holding up a pair of electric-blue heels.

Evelyn, without taking her eyes off her gift, reached into her pocket and tossed the money over her shoulder, which Quentin easily plucked from the air.

"That's ALL?" Rick said, looking annoyed. "You just barge in for a measly ten-pound note?"

"Shut up, Rick!" said Evelyn, Vyvyan and, oddly enough, Quentin, all at once.

"Shoessss..." Evelyn grinned, kicking off her trainers and slipping on her new ones, which looked a bit strange with Hello Kitty socks.

"Well, bye, Evelyn!" Quentin said, smiling. He stood beside his manically-grinning daughter. "Oh, and one more thing..."

He handed her something.

"Use it well." Quentin said to Evelyn, winking roguishly (his daughter blanched) and promptly strolled cheerfully out of the house.

Evelyn looked down at what Quentin had stuffed into her hand. It was a condom.

"GAH!" Evelyn squealed, her face going the colour of a sundried tomato, and she promptly dropped the condom on the floor and stomped on it, then kicked it so that it went skidding out of the door and down the front path.

"I'm freeee!" said the condom. Then it got squished by a truck.

"What's the matter, Ev?" inquired Neil, as Evelyn stomped over to the table and sat down with a dramatic thud.

"My father is a complete idiot." Evelyn replied, flatly. Then she looked up. "Now, would somebody like to tell me why is there a piece of toast stuck to the ceiling?"

"Well-" began Neil.

"It was all Vyvyan's fault!" shouted Rick, pointing at him. "He gwabbed my toast, and-"

Vyvyan looked rather bored.

"Who cares?"

"Why did I even ask?" Evelyn muttered, taking a swig of Coke. Then, suddenly, she hiccupped. Loudly. "Oh, dammit."

"What?"

"Nothing." Evelyn shrugged. "Hiccups."

She did it again. Mike looked amused.

"Oh, I know something that might help, Ev!" Neil said. Evelyn raised her eyebrows.

"You do?"

"Yeah, yeah, it's great! What you do right, is take a pomegranate, and then you-"

Evelyn hiccupped.

"Let's just skip the explanation and go for it, ok- hic- ay?"

"This won't end well..." Mike remarked, to the camera.

* * *

_Several hours later..._

"Hic," went Evelyn, for about the four-hundredth time that evening.

"Stop doing that, Ev," Michael said from behind his newspaper. "It's very distracting."

"I- hic- can't help it!" replied Evelyn, shoulders twitching convulsively with each hiccup. She glared at Neil from her position on the sofa, "This is all your -hic- fault, Neil!"

"How is it my fault?" whined Neil from the kitchen, "What did I do?"

"You were born!" shouted Rick, giving one of his snorty laughs at his oh-so-witty remark. Nobody paid him the slightest bit of notice.

"You and your -hic- stupid hippy remedies- hic- made them WORSE!" shouted Evelyn, as Rick pouted, "And now I can't -hic- stop!"

"A highly irritating distraction." commented Mike.

"Distraction from what?" pondered Neil.

"Evelyn is highly iwwitating anyway." sniggered Rick.

"And you're a complete bastard," snapped Vyvyan, who had been busily carving the table with one of his favourite knives. It was quiet for a minute.

"Hic!" went Evelyn again, forlornly.

"Evelyn, for god's sake, you've had hiccups for about six hours now!" shrieked Rick. "It's bloody widiculous!"

"I -hic- can't stop!" wailed Evelyn. "Do someth -hic- ing!"

"Right, I've had enough of this!" declared Vyvyan, decisively.

Rick opened his mouth to deliver another oh-so-witty comment, when Vyvyan suddenly got up and sauntered over to where Evelyn was sitting on the sofa. There was a somewhat menacing gleam in his eye and Evelyn looked wary.

"What?" she managed to say, sounding really quite worried as Vyvyan loomed over her for a second in a rather frightening manner, "Why are you- hic- staring- Ahh! You bastard! Stop-hic- it! Vyvan- !"

The orange-haired punk totally ignored Evelyn's shriek as he casually jumped on the sofa, pinning Ev down with one arm and his knees, using the other one to violently tickle her. It was nothing short of a miracle that he hadn't squashed her. Evelyn burst into hysterical giggles, wriggling around wildly, laughing so hard she couldn't breathe properly. Her attempts to wriggle free of Vyvyan's ridiculously strong grip proved to be completely useless. Then, just as quickly as it had started, it was over. Evelyn was left to gasp for breath as Vyvyan nonchalantly returned to his original seat.

"Wh-what on earth was that meant to be, Vyvyan?" cried Rick, looking oddly pink for some reason, "Aside from looking wildly inappwopriate, you pervy, all you actually did was tickle her!"

Vyvyan smirked, as Evelyn sat there on the sofa, apparently stunned by what had just happened.

"Well it worked, didn't it?" retorted Vyvyan.

The five sat in silence for a moment, listening. Evelyn looked highly relieved. Then,

"Hic," went Rick, out of nowhere.

Everyone stared at Rick. Vyvyan's expression was almost predatory.

Rick gulped.

"Oh dear."

* * *

So, hints of somethings going on! The mysterious cousin Alison will appear later in the story, which should shake things up a little bit. Not quite yet, though- the Young Ones have a few more misadventures to get into before then.

Also, minor trivia: Tammy is the prototype name I had for Evs when I first made her up. Glad I switched it to Evelyn, though.

You've read, so what next?

Review! ^-^


	4. Fungus, dogs and dustbunnies

I am such a jerk.

Just...oh, god, you guys, you leave such wonderful reviews. I think this fanfic has some of the nicest collection of anons and I'm SO sorry this chapter has taken so long. I just kind of got very busy with uni life, essays, and pure procrastinating. Also I've not been watching as much Young Ones as I was before, so this is at least a viable reason...but yeah, you guys are so amazing. I think I might want to move in with you all. :D I hope you enjoy this chapter (and weirdly, I've been dying to write the opening scene for ages. XD I also just noticed I need to change the fic summary, it makes no sense anymore, lulz.)

Enjoy!

* * *

It was there again.

Evelyn stood very still.

Since moving in with the boys (which, while it was disgusting and loud and induced a ridiculous number of headaches), it was still a vast improvement over her old flatmates.

But that wasn't to say there weren't downsides.

And Evelyn Sebastian Volcano was staring one of them down right now.

The downside growled threateningly. Although it was chained to a kennel, that offered little comfort, as the last time Evelyn had walked past this particular house on her way out, the damn dog had managed to rip free of its confinement, forcing her to barricade herself inside a Laundromat until it became confused as to where its target had vanished and wandered off.

But, she suspected such a quick escape would not be easily rewarded to her this time.

"Okay..." Evelyn whispered to herself, trying to be motivational, the way she was when she tried to do sit-ups, for example, or particularly daunting coursework. "You can do this. It's just a dog...a big dog...but it only got free once...just walk past it, act casual and don't show your fear."

Feeling confident that this would work, Evelyn took in a deep breath and began walking purposefully forwards, trying to distract herself with thoughts of all the clothes she planned on buying that day, once she had successfully tracked down Neil and bullied him into being her human pack-mule, of course. She knew it was pointless trying with the others; Rick couldn't lift anything heavier than a kettle without whining about throwing out his back, and Vyvyan was such a ridiculously heavy sleeper that it would have taken a marching band just to garner a reaction. So as it was, Neil would just have to do, and earlier on that morning, the long-haired hippie had been ordered by Mike to go to the shops, and he had not returned by the time Evelyn dragged herself out of bed, so she had no choice but to go searching for him. (Given the pace Neil normally walked, it shouldn't be too difficult to catch up to him.)

However, as the dog's growl rose and fell menacingly, Evelyn started to panic a bit. More than a bit, and she found her mental planning promptly shot to shit when she suddenly found herself _launching_down the street as the dog began barking loudly, and the next thing Evelyn knew, she rocketed past several startled-looking pensioners as she heard the dreaded noise of the dog's chain clattering along the pavement as it gave chase.

"AAAAGH! KILLER DOG! SOMEBODY GET SOME SILVER BULLETS QUICKLY!" Evelyn shrieked as she dashed along, although her yelling was interrupted by an unwelcome coughing fit as she promptly got some hair stuck in her mouth. "Bleh!" she blurted, spitting it out in disgust.

Neil, who conveniently had been drifting along down the street Evelyn was headed towards like a lost balloon, looked up in confusion to see Evelyn bolting down the street with what looked like a Rottweiler chasing after her.

"Um, Ev?" Neil said. "I think, you've, like, got something following you."

"DON'T JUST STAND THERE, NEIL, THROW SOMETHING AT IT!" Evelyn shouted, in too much panic to bother telling him she'd already worked out she was being followed for herself.

"But I'm a pacifist!" Neil protested weakly.

"I DON'T CARE! Think of something!"

Neil thought, hard.

"Oh, I know, I know!"

Evelyn glared at him as he hopped up and down excitedly.

"This had better be good."

* * *

"I'm hungry!" Rick whined. "When is that stupid hippy coming back from the shops?"

"I sent him off at least two hours ago..." frowned Mike, but then he shrugged and continued combing his already slicked-back hair.

Suddenly, however, the relative quiet of the kitchen was interrupted by Evelyn and Neil suddenly bursting into the house like a pair of squirrels, Neil tripping over the threshold, sending the one shopping bag he had managed to cling on to as he and Evelyn ran for their lives back to the house spilling onto the floor.

"Ouch." Complained a jar of mayonnaise.

"Don't worry, dear." A peach answered in a disturbingly lilting, female voice. "At least you won't bruise."

"Oh, that's absolutely _bwilliant_, Neil!" Rick immediately complained, leaping on a chance to criticise and totally ignoring random food objects coming to life for no reason except for a quick, horrible pun. "Now what are we meant to-"

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Evelyn burst out, pressed up against the door as the Rottweiler barked furiously from outside. "Can't you see we have slightly more PRESSING matters to deal with?!"

"Evelyn, what happened to your twousers?" Rick suddenly asked, pointing, as the hem of Evelyn's jeans did indeed look like they'd been viciously chewed.

"It's that stupid dog from number seven!" she wailed, biting agitatedly on her nails. "It chased us all the way here and it almost got me!"

"It _bit _me." Neil complained, but nobody paid any attention.

"Why did you two come here, then?" Mike said, exasperated, as though a rampaging Rottweiler was a minor inconvenience.

"Oh no, oh no!" Rick panicked. "I bet I taste delicious! Don't let it get me!"

"Shut up, Rick!" Evelyn snapped.

"I thought Vyvyan might be able to scare it off!" Neil explained. "Where is he?"

"Still in bed." Mike said, bemused.

"Vyvyan! Vyvyan!" Neil said, shouting up the stairs like a cat wanting its owner to come feed it. "Um, some heavy stuff's going on down here!"

Predictably, there was no response.

The dog then chose that moment to jump up against the glass, causing the front door to jar alarmingly, barking all the while and Evelyn let out a shriek, Rick started screaming like a hysterical child. Neil began chanting, "Oh, heavy, heavy!" over and over, and Mike just sat there watching the lunacy unfold.

Suddenly, a door flew down the stairs, narrowly missing Neil.

"WILL YOU ALL JUST SHUT UP?!" came a familiar yell from up the stairs. "I AM TRYING TO SLEEP YOU BASTARDS!"

"Get rid of it, get rid of it!" Evelyn yelled, frantically.

"Oh my god, it almost got me!" Rick squealed, which was a total lie.

"Get rid of what?!"

"THE DOG!" shouted the three, together.

Groaning, Vyvyan rubbed at his eyes from where his bedroom door used to be, before stomping down the stairs. He looked unimpressed by the black shape at the door.

Striding past a hysterical Rick and the other two, he wrenched open the front door, stepped out onto the front porch and growled. The dog faltered for a moment, confused by this new presense, and when Vyvyan stepped forwards and growled straight back. The dog barked, but it let out a whimper when Vyvyan, still growling (possibly due to being woken up by his melodramatic housemates), chased after it. The other three watched as the dog vanished around the corner, with Vyvyan chasing it and a number of bizarre sounds emanating from the punk.

"Well, that's that sorted." Mike commented, blithely.

"Yes, but now, thanks to Neil and that stupid mongwel, I am not getting any bweakfast!" Rick pouted.

"Rick, did it occur to you that you are in fact of possession of working legs and you're perfectly capable of using them to get your _own_food?" Evelyn sniped, which was admittedly rather hypocritical of her, since she had gone to find Neil with the specific intention to use him as a pack mule, but arguing with Rick was always guaranteed for entertainment.

Rick put his hands on his hips (he wasn't wearing his dungarees today, at least) when Vyvyan, looking no worse for wear unlike Neil and Evelyn, came stomping back into the house, heading straight for the stairs, stooping to pick up his bedroom door on the way, for the sole purpose of carrying it upstairs and slamming it for effect.

"If anybody wakes me up again I'll staple your eyelids to the ceiling." he said, after shoving Rick over, just because he could, and vanishing out of sight.

"You bastard!" Rick spluttered, from the floor, but for once Vyvyan ignored him.

A small silence settled, and Mike sighed as he surveyed the food on the ground. He flicked the page of the magazine he was reading, deciding that if he ignored it, then maybe the food might grow legs and tidy itself up. It wouldn't be the strangest thing that had happened in this house.

"So!" Evelyn said, startling everyone as she suddenly clapped her house, having bounced back from her previous hysteria with alarming ease. "Who wants to come shopping with me?"

* * *

Although it had become increasingly apparent that Evelyn was just as insane as everybody else, despite her deceptively normal-ish appearance, it had to be said that it was quite nice to have a girl in the house for the boys. Ignoring her random accusations of bra theft, of course. And even if said girl refused to do any of the domestic tasks that Neil had been lumbered with, and nobody dared bring up the proposition of actually having sex with her; which was a bit disappointing, but since each boy wished to keep his eardrums/nose/kneecaps from being shattered, it was a sacrifice they had been forced to make.

But still, it was nice.

Especially for some people...

"Oohh..." drooled Rick, as he eagerly flipped through the pages of Evelyn's Cosmopolitan."Debbie Hawwy! You can 'call me' anytime!"

Rick giggled, snorting wildly at his own joke. He was happily sitting on the stairs having a good perv, eagerly grasping the glossy magazine in his fingers. It was a good job the others weren't there- Evelyn had gone shopping, dragging Neil with her, Mike was at the Chemists and Vyvyan was apparently trying to break the world record of refusing to get out of bed. So he was safe to indulge in his secret obsession of pretty women and pictures of shoes.

But just as Rick turned another page of the magazine, he could hear a female voice;

"Well I _can't_carry any of the bags, Neil, because I'm currently unlocking the door, okay?"

"Yeah, but Ev-"

"Shut up, Neil."

Rick squeaked as he made out Evelyn's vague shape through the translucent glass of the front door, and promptly bolted up the stairs. He had to hurry up and put the Cosmopolitan back where he found it- it had been lying on Evelyn's bed, freshly ripped out of the packet. There was no way she wouldn't notice if it was missing.

But as Rick ran inside and threw the magazine in the direction of Evelyn's bed, he suddenly slammed into something.

"Ugh!" Rick grunted, and then gasped. "Vyvyan! What are _you_doing in here?"

The orange-haired punk glared at him.

"Shut up, you girl!"

"No I will NOT shut up! This is appalling, cweeping awound somebody else's room like this!" Rick cried, stamping his foot and choosing to strategically ignore the fact that this was exactly what he was doing. "What are you doing to do, set up one of your _hilawious_pwactical jokes?"

"Don't be stupid! I've already done that in your room!"

Rick gaped at him.

"You complete and utter BASTARD!"

Rick's statement might have been more impressive if Vyvyan hadn't lazily swung at him, causing the Sociology student to squeal and duck out of the way.

"Look, just mind your own business, Rick, or I'll ram this penknife up your nostril, okay?" Vyvyan said, brandishing it with a typical Vyvyan gurn on his face. "Anyway, I'm looking for-"

When both of them heard Evelyn's voice, clear as a bell.

"Wait there! I'll be down in a minute."

Next thing, thundering footsteps started, indicating that Evelyn was coming up the stairs.

There was only one thing for it.

"HIDE!" squealed Rick.

And the two boys promptly dived onto the floor and wriggled frantically until they were both squashed underneath the bed, Vyvyan using the opportunity to give Rick a crafty elbowing as he did so. It was lucky for them that the only thing underneath Evelyn's bed besides her empty suitcase was the odd sock or dust bunny. They had no time to ponder this decision to _both _hide under the bed, when the door opened again and Evelyn's feet entered the room.

"...c'mon, it's a nice day for a...white WEDDING!" Evelyn sang to herself, her feet walking towards the direction of her wardrobe.

The door of the wardrobe opened and they heard Evelyn sorting through her clothes, mumbling to herself.

"Too warm...too cold...fuck...makes me look like a zebra, why do I even _have _this...too sparkly...not sparkly enough...aha!"

She pulled something out of her wardrobe and wandered over to the bed, sitting down on it with a thump. Rick stifled a gasp as the mattress sagged slightly above their heads. Evelyn continued singing to herself as she kicked off her shoes. Then (much to the boy's relief) she got back off the bed.

Then things took an unexpected turn.

Evelyn bent down slightly, first peeling off her socks, which she flung under the bed. Vyvyan gagged as one of them hit him in the face, although it naturally didn't smell as bad as one of HIS socks. Then, humming, her top suddenly landed on the floor by Evelyn's feet. Before either boy had change to think about this too much, they heard the distinct noise of a belt being unbuckled...then Evelyn's jeans joined the shirt on the floor.

Rick whimpered slightly. Vyvyan pinched him.

"Now, where did I put my...? Ah."

Evelyn's bare feet padded away from the bed slightly, and she started shifting through her chest of drawers. Wandering back to the bed, there was another rustling noise. Vyvyan gulped.

"Vyvyan," Rick whispered- luckily, there was no way for Evelyn to hear him as she was still singing to herself. "Is she...going to take off her...?"

And then, landing with barely any noise on top of her jeans, was...

"...bra..." Vyvyan gasped.

Both boys suddenly found themselves clenching hands.

Then, Evelyn sat down on the bed again and (after swearing a bit) there was a bit more rustling.

"Niiiice!" Evelyn grinned as she wandered over to her dressing table, evidently having just put on a new outfit she had bought.

But to the boys' horror, she walked over to the bed and this time lay down on it, the cellophane wrapper of the Cosmopolitan crackling. They heard a yawn.

"Vyvyan," Rick whispered, his eyes almost bulging out of his sockets. "Is she...?"

"Shut up or I'll kill you!" Vyvyan hissed back.

But just as things seemed to take a turn for the worst, they heard the distant ringing of the phone. Next thing, Neil's voice floated up to them.

"Eeeeev! There's, like, somebody on the phone who's ringing because they, like, want to talk to you!"

Evelyn sighed throatily, got up, and slipped out of the door, her striped legs disappearing around the corner.

The moment they heard her going down the stairs, both boys rapidly wriggled out from beneath the bed, both of them with dust coating their chests. Standing up, both of them avoided eye contact as they quickly left Evelyn's bedroom, because, as exciting as it had been to see that, both of them held hands and they needed some time to process that.

* * *

Some time later, the boys and girl came to the realisation that it was nearing dinner time, so four out of five of them drifted in the direction of the kitchen, although the fact they all instinctively knew what time it was considering that the clocks in the house told different times was quite impressive. The others weren't sure where Mike was, but since Vyvyan was hungry, Neil was depressed, Rick wanted the attention all to himself and Evelyn just didn't care, nobody asked.

Evelyn looked on in a combination of dismay and disgust as Neil began dutifully trying to scrape together something edible as Rick bossed Neil around in an attempt to look impressive, with comments such as;

"Neil, if you were any slower, you wouldn't be using an egg-timer...you'd be using an egg-calendar!" he said, pausing before delivering the punch line and snorting uproariously.

"But, Rick, I'm not making eggs." Neil said, looking a bit confused. Then again, Neil often looked like that.

"Rick, that joke wasn't funny the first time you said it, it wasn't funny now, and it will only ever be funny if somebody shoves a Swiss-army knife into your eye-socket, so shut up." Vyvyan said, pulling a rather ridiculous face as if to punctuate the sentence.

"Oh, well, I DO beg your pardon, Vyvyan!" Rick retorted, hands on hips. "I suppose you think you're the expert on comedy, do you?"

"Rick, even somebody deaf, blind and terminally thick knows you're not funny!"

"That is NOT twue!"

"Yes it is." Evelyn deadpanned.

Ignoring Rick's incoherent spluttering, she pulled a packet of cereal off the side hopefully, but the label kindly informed her that not only was it five years out of date, but when she did, SPG attempted to snap at her fingers.

"Agh!" Evelyn shouted, hopping back, promptly dropping the packet and dry, tasteless cereal promptly exploded all over the floor.

"Vyvyan!" Evelyn shrieked, thrusting an accusatory finger at the offending hamster. "Look at what your stupid fleaball made me do!"

"I bet I know who's going to have to clean that up..." Neil said, dismally, staring sadly at the cereal on the floor.

"Bring it on, ya daft tart!" SPG goaded.

"WHAT?!"

Evelyn let out what sounded a bit like a war cry and tried to pound the annoying hamster with a chair leg, but he scurried out of the way just in time. Vyvyan seemed largely unconcerned with this, instead he was busily trying to crunch the cereal beneath his Doc Martins, if only because he liked the noise it made.

"Ugh, why is it that we always seem to have no food in this decrepit excuse for a house?"

Evelyn complained in disgust, having come to the none-too-strenuous conclusion that she was NOT going to eat lentils, even if that was basically all that had been on offer for the past few days, except for toast. She turned and addressed the room at large. "Why can't we just go out to eat?"

"Good idea!" Vyvyan said, who was in a chipper mood because he'd found money under Rick's bed when he had been in there earlier, setting up a delicious new prank. "Let's go to that Indian place where they give you a free fire extinguisher when you get the five-chilly curry!"

"Can we get a naan bread?" Neil asked, like a little kid, managing to pull off a combination of plaintive and whiny at the same time.

"Wait, wait, wait!" said Rick, dramatically.

The others looked over at him in a long-suffering kind of way. Rick put his hands on his hips.

"So we're going out to spend our hard earned money just because Evelyn says so?"

"Hard-earned? That's a fucking laugh, Rick, considering all you ever do is convert oxygen into carbon dioxide and waste everyone's time with your incessant monologues and tantrum-throwing." Evelyn retorted.

"I do NOT throw tantrums!"

"Yeah you do."

"I do not!"

"Do so!"

"I bloody well do not!"

"You're doing it RIGHT NOW, Professor Wankstain!" Evelyn yelled.

"NO I-!"

Vyvyan decided to settle this argument by hitting Rick with the umbrella stand, causing him to go slamming into the floor with a pathetic little sound. He looked a bit like an insect squashed up against a car windscreen. Evelyn laughed.

"I'll go get Mike!" he said, as if there had been no break between Rick's protestations. Truthfully, with Rick disorientated, it seemed like the more sensible option.

As Vyvyan's boots clomped away up the stairs, Evelyn sank into a nearby chair with an exaggerated sigh.

"No I'm not!" Rick suddenly said, as he regained his (meagre) sense and got up again.

Evelyn groaned.

"You are, Rick." Neil told him, honestly.

"Nobody asked you, Neil, you disgusting fungus!"

"Yeah, it sort of sounds like that." added Evelyn thoughtfully, "Only less lispy."

"I AM NOT LISPY!"

Speaking of disgusting fungus...

Having being told by Vyvyan that a possible meal out was on the horizon (it was rare for the boys to go out to anywhere that wasn't a pub), he had returned to the bathroom to begin a "beauty" regimen that probably could surpass Evelyn's in terms of excessive product use and wasted time. Mike had at least five different types of hair gel alone.

However, after accidentally knocking his second favourite pair of sunglasses onto the floor, Mike had bent down by the cabinet underneath the sink, when he suddenly noticed a rather odd smell emanating from it. Now, living with Neil, Vyvyan and Rick, he was used to putrid smells, but this was something he had never come across before, and that alone was intriguing.

Shaking back the sleeves of his leather jacket (why he was wearing leather jacket in the bathroom was anybody's guess), he cautiously pried open a door.

Inside, a very peculiar mould seemed to be...pulsating. The strange, damp smell was ever stronger with the cabinet doors open, and if Mike's eyes weren't playing tricks on him (although given his excessive use of sunglasses wearing, it was likely they were), the fungus was actually slowly expanding even as he crouched there watching it.

Mike examined the fungus with a rather bemused look.

He could have sworn the fungus examined him back.

Mike turned to the camera, dramatically.

"I think it's time to call the Exterminator!"

* * *

Dundundunduuuun! The first cliffhanger of the fic!

Yes, Evelyn has a male middle name. I can't wait for when the boys find out. :D I will try not to take so long with the next chapter, luckily I have the next one planned out more, so all I need now is some inspiration. :)

Till next time~!


End file.
